As Seen in Vanity Fair's August 2006 Issue!
As Seen in US News & World Report's September 11 Fifth Anniversary Issue!
As Seen in Time Magazine's September 11, 2006 Issue!
As Seen in Phoenix New Times' August 9, 2007 Issue!

Friday, November 30, 2007

The North Tower Fire And Collapse

Update: See the update at the bottom.

Is the subject of a coming post, but here's a picture that demonstrates what extraordinary stresses the building was experiencing:

Note the many severed columns along the West (left) face of the building. Note the very evident buckling of the South (right) side of the building.

Update: Mark (Gravy) Roberts checks in to say that he doesn't believe any of the columns on the West face were severed. Looking closely at the photograph it appears that I may have been misled by the darkened color. I can see in the middle that some of the blackened columns do appear to be continuous. There certainly does appear to be some bowing visible in the southmost columns on that face of the buiding. But I cannot be positive that the extent of severed columns is as great as I represented originally in this post.

McCain & the Truthers, Round Two

I do wish he wouldn't frame the issue as one of free speech; he doesn't hesitate to decry the tone in Washington, which is also free speech. But again, he stands up strongly for the 9-11 Commission, and gets the right answer on the dissatisfied families. We only hear about them because the satisfied families have gotten on with their lives.

Idiotic Loose Change Post of the Day... err Year?

It appears to just be copied from another looney anti-Semitic website, but this post (aside from the really bad Russian) is in Bill Deagle territory for crazy.

Denver International Airport has a 88.3 square mile Deep Underground Military Base underneath it. In other words this base is over 22 miles in diameter. This base goes down over 8 levels. Basically this Deep Underground Military Base is 8 cities on top of each other. The first level starts at around 1 mile undeground. On the eight level is a mag-lev train network that takes you out to hundreds of other Deep Underground Military Bases all over Mexico, America and Canada. This base is connected to the Los Alamos and Dulce Deep Underground Military Bases. There are over 330 such bases under North America and Central America alone. All these bases are run by the ... NSA. The CIA and DIA work with the NSA very closely. This base used to be used as a holding center for millions of adults and children who were kidnapped or abducted from the towns and cities of America and sometimes Canada. The Milk Carton Kids that the FBI used to post on milk cartons were all taken by the NSA for genetic experimentation, microchipping, .... mind control and cybernetic implantations for future used as brainwashed soldiers of the NWO Illuminati. Every year in America over 1 million children go missing and over 450,000 adults go missing. Go to www.missingkids.com for further details. These slave children will be used as effective killing machines against innocent people in America and Canada inthe very near future. As most of you now know there are already over 7 million UNISF and UNMNTF troops stationed across America and Canada readying themselves for the approaching day of Martial Law in America, where millions of Americans will be rounded up, gangraped, sadistically tortured and executed by these Luciferian UNMNTF, UNISF, UNPKF Troops. All these UN Troops are Chinese, Russian, German, Polish, Japanese, Ukrainian, Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, Mexican, Honduran, Salvadorean and Chilean. I know it all sounds like some weird, screwed up conspiracy theory, but i know in my heart that i am only speaking the truth. There isn't much time left for America. Soon events will overtake your reality and what many of us have been warning about will suddenly be revealed to you. Your government is pure evil and does not care for any man, woman or child in America. Remember also that the Illuminati want to reduce the population of America down to only 140 million people by 2015. How do you think they will beable to do this?

Although really, this is just one step beyond what Alex Jones argues every day.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Osama: I Did It

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden called on Europeans to stop helping the United States in the war in Afghanistan, according to excerpts of a new audiotape broadcast Thursday on Al-Jazeera television.

Bin Laden said it was unjust for the United States to have invaded Afghanistan for sheltering him after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, saying he was the "only one responsible" for the deadly assaults on New York and Washington.

"The events of Manhattan were retaliation against the American-Israeli alliance's aggression against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and I am the only one responsible for it. The Afghan people and government knew nothing about it. America knows that," the al-Qaida leader said.

Just when the 9-11 Truth Movement was about to ignite a revolution in the streets!

The FBI also shoots down the long-standing claim by Ed Haas that it has no evidence tying Osama to the attacks:

FBI analysts were reviewing the tape but were not immediately able to say how long it was or when it might have been recorded nor could they provide other details. Spokesman Richard Kolko said it was being examined "to determine if it is authentic and for any intelligence value."

"As the FBI has said since 9/11, bin Laden was responsible for the attack," Kolko said in a statement. "In this latest tape, he again acknowledged his responsibility. This should help to clarify for all the conspiracy theorists, again — the 9/11 attack was done by bin Laden and al-Qaida."

Asked for a comment, Dylan Avery declined to take his head out of the oven.

Dylan With the AP

Haven't watched it all, but I am amused that Dylan now recalls being suspicious the day of 9-11. Also, it seems that Dylan is back to believing in a "stand down" order. Was it only August that Dylan stated quite emphatically:

There was no stand down order.

His answer to "Why would they do this?" is a classic: "Why wouldn't they do this?"

Loose Change--Without a Ripple Effect

If you think you aren't hearing much about Loose Change the Final Cut here, it's partially because we aren't hearing anything about it over there. On the Loose Change Forum thread dedicated to the Final Cut, there have been six total posts since November 14, three days after the film was released, and one of those was from executive producer Tim Sparke (Mercury) trying to flog the faithful.

Dylan and company have gotten caught on the horns of a dilemma. The earlier Loose Change films were successful precisely because they were free. Now that they've spent a lot of money on the new version, they have to charge for it. But the act of charging for it limits the amount of buzz the film gets. Last year at this time we were getting tons of referrals from various forums around the internet; currently we get a very, very small percentage of our traffic via that route.

I do want to compile a list of the errors we've seen in the film as a reference source. But it's more for when they actually release the free version, which if they're waiting until they make their investors whole is liable to take quite awhile.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Help Buy Richard Gage and His Friends Lunch!

I got this rather unusual request for money in my e-mail. Here it is on the AE911truth.org website:

Sponsor an Architect or Engineer!

Buy the A/E's Lunch and feed them the 9/11 Truth!

Every sandwich we put in front of an Architect or Engineer also feeds them the 9/11 truth – that is, the solid evidence of controlled demolition in our 1 hour multimedia PowerPoint presentation. Remember our AE911Truth.org Mission: to bring the truth about the 9/11 "collapses" of all 3 WTC high-rise buildings to every architect and engineer in the S.F. Bay Area and beyond. Here’s how we do it:

1. We offer to bring to the A/E firm our fascinating technical presentation on the "collapses" of the WTC high-rise buildings. (This ensures their presence. )

2. We bring a good lunch and give the noon-hour presentation – sticking to the technical points.

3. We usually get about 100% who agree with us that there are very serious questions about the official story.

4. And we get about 90% who agree with us that the buildings were indeed brought down by controlled demolition.

5. Of those, about 70 to 80% feel comfortable enough joining us by signing our petition "calling upon Congress for a truly independent investigation into the collapses". (That's all there is to joining AE911Truth.org!)

6. This is the process we have used to attract our members — and its success is proven because the evidence itself is solid and convincing.

7. All that is ask of you is that you buy a sandwich for an architect or engineer! We'll do the rest! This gives you tremendous leverage to expand the 9/11 Truth Movement with those that will make the most impact — the building professionals!

Yeah, OK. I wonder if they have tried taking the UC Berkeley Structural Engineering department out to lunch? Actually, they are a bit out to lunch themselves...

Ramzi Binalshibh's Confession Video

Kudos to our buddy Undesired Walrus over at the JREF Forums for putting this together. Binalshibh confessed his involvement in 9-11 during 2002 to an Al-Jazeera reporter. Binalshibh was originally to be one of the pilot hijackers but could not gain entry to the United States. When he was forced to remain in Hamburg, he became a liason between the hijackers and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is presently one of the internees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo.

Could They Get Any More Ridiculous?

The Urinal of 9-11 Stundies publishes the most breathtakingly fatheaded "peer-reviewed" letter that I can recall seeing over there since the "Flying Elephant" paper back in their initial edition, which was eventually rescinded (heckuva a job you're doing there, Jonesy!).

The author, who shows at least one working synapse by declining to be identified, goes through a fairly trivial set of calculations to estimate how much jet fuel remained inside the buildings and on the impacted floors (i.e., excluding the fireballs outside the building and the amount that flowed down through the vertical penetrations (elevator shafts and stairwells), based on NIST's own estimates. He comes to the conclusion that roughly 3500 gallons remained on the impacted floors in the North Tower and 3,000 gallons in the South Tower.

Then, ludicrously, he presents some visual aids to show us the amount of room that jet fuel would take up. Why, that would only fill a standard office cubicle to 9 feet high, or a small backyard pool, or a U-Haul truck! Obviously that tiny amount of fuel could not possibly have brought down the towers!

Piling hilarity on hilarity, he then visually shows the relative size of each tower to a cubicle, a U-Haul truck and a swimming pool. Now it's tempting to point out that it's unfair to compare the fluid that remained on roughly 6-8 floors of each tower to the entire tower, but even if he'd compared the jet fuel volume to only those 6-8 floors, it would be an asinine comparison. Why? Think about a large house and a tiny match. Clearly by the "logic" used by the anonymous writer, that tiny match could not possibly destroy that large house.

It's not the jet fuel, it's what gets ignited by the jet fuel. It's not the match, it's what gets ignited by the match. Un-freaking-believable!

Update: Here's a challenge for Dr Jones. We know that the 8 stories of the North Tower that were impacted by Flight 11 contained approximately 350,000 square feet of area. Divided by 3500 gallons, gives us a ratio of 100 square feet per gallon. Let's assume that Dr Jones' home is, oh, say 2500 square feet. What I propose is that he pour out 25 gallons (one gallon per 100 square feet) of kerosene (virtually the equivalent of jet fuel) in his house and light it on fire and let it burn for an hour and 45 minutes. If his house is still standing at the end of that time, I will concede the point.

Are We Burning Journalists Alive Yet?

William Woodward, a psychology professor from the University of New Hampshire and member of the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth" posts a speech he is giving in India, and shows why he needs to have his head examined:

Dan Rather, retired news anchor, stated that "there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around peoples' necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions.... And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism. ..What we are talking about here - whether one wants to recognise it or not, or call it by its proper name or not - is a form of self-censorship." An article about how journalists have been threatened for asking innocuous questions about 9/11 disappeared from the web archives of The Los Angeles Times.

Yeah, and you have never heard of a public library? You work at a university for God's sake, I am sure they archive the LA Times. Please list all the journalists that have been killed or threatened for asking questions about 9/11. Hell, they haven't even bothered to stop Christopher Bollyn from updating his website, and he is a wanted felon.

9-11 Myths Interview

That was my first encounter with the “inside job” theory, yes, I think back in 2003. At the time I was surprised, but discovered that some of the evidence they’d put forward didn’t stand up, and posted a reply saying why. I naively thought that might be helpful! But of course it was ignored. I carried on debating there and on other forums for maybe 18 months, but eventually realised I was seeing the same pattern happen over, and over, and over again: debunked points were never acknowledged, just dropped for a while, only to be reintroduced a month or two later, presumably in the hope no-one would notice.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Has It Only Been Five Years?

However, not all blogs which create or deal in conspiracies give bloggers a bad name. Some blogs start with a conspiracy theory and then evolve with the theory and the fame. Screw Loose Change started out to “dispel the lies, distortions, and myths in the movie, Loose Change,” a conspiracy movie about 9/11. In the past five years, it has grown into an expert blog, cited by many news articles and reports, as a source for debunking the movie and 9/11 conspiracy theories that keep developing.

:)

It looks like this is part of a series on conspiracy theories. Here Lorelle talks about the money side of the CT business.

Last year, Sam Vaknin Ph.D. wrote in “The Economics of Conspiracy Theories” on the American Chronicle that many are profiting from conspiracy theories, writing books, selling magazines and television shows, even movies, becoming a celebrity for their conspiracy plots as the source or participant. In and of itself, the business of making money with conspiracies might be a conspiracy in itself:

Debunking the Warnings

Richard Miniter points out that the recent Scripps poll simply reveals that 62% of the American public are wrong about the specificity of the warnings received:

Richard Clarke, the hard-driving “counter-terrorism czar,” testified before the 9-11 commission about pre-September 11 intelligence. He said that the number of “al Qaeda threats and other terrorist threats was in the tens of thousands—probably hundreds of thousands.” But none of it contained specific information that could be used to stop the 9-11 plot. Clarke is even more emphatic in his book, Against All Enemies: “Had we had any chance of stopping it, had we the knowledge we needed to prevent that day, those of us sitting as members of CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] would literally have given our lives to do so; many of those around the CSG table had already put their lives at risk for their country.”

What was lacking was “actionable intelligence.” To prevent the 9-11 attacks (or any terrorist attack), intelligence officials need to know the target, timing, and type of attack, what counterterrorism researcher Kevin Michael Derksen calls “the three T’s of tactical intelligence.” Without knowing all three elements—when, where, and how—an attack cannot be stopped. If you knew that al Qaeda was going to attack the World Trade Center on September 11, but assumed a truck bomb attack, you would be inspecting cars while the planes crashed overhead.

Jon Gold steps boldly into the comments section with Patty Casazza's claim that some whistleblower she met along the side of the road in Maryland told her that the government knew the exact date, the method and the targets; what a shame she neglected to mention this "evidence" in 9-11 Press for Truth.

Kucinich's 9-11 Investigation, Part II

He seems to realize that there's no there, there with regard to the financial investigations that he promised to make, but he's unwilling to completely blow off the Troofers. Sound and video quality are awful.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Blast from the Past

I happened to be looking through old stuff and found this announcement from Dylan Avery as to his planned opening to Loose Change Final Cut:

This will most likely be the only time I'm going to do this, at least for a while, so soak it up. By posting this, I'm not asking for what to take out or leave in, I'm simply sharing the information with you. Take it or leave it. The opening of LC: Final Cut will go somewhat like this:

As Requested, Smackdown of Nico Haupt

In response to this:

Earlier this week, as others have noted, Nico Haupt went beyond the pale, stalking 911 activist Richard Gage with a heavy dose of homophobia. No word of denouncement has been heard from either Screw Loose Change, where Nico posts are greeted like Moses' Tablets from Mount Sinai, or 911Researchers, a site run by Richard Seigel that promotes Nico Haupt's no-planes, TV-fakery garbage.

The post refers to Nico's "9-11 Stalker TV" show, which is linked from the above post. Nico talks about "Josephus" Cressy and Richard "Gay-ge" and other "perverts" in the movement. I'm virtually positive that the claim that Jo (Jenny Sparks) Cressy is a transgendered person is nonsense, I don't have a clue as to Richard Gage's sexual orientation, and even if Nico were right on both scores, that wouldn't make either of them a "pervert" in my book.

So here's a raspberry to Nico for indulging himself in these homophobic slurs, and another one to Jenny who has employed the same tactics.

Hat Tip: To an emailer whose email I lost. Thanks!

Update: Link removed to original post. What a shock, the original poster after chiding Nico for homophobia turns around and engages in it himself. These people really are retards.

McCain Gets An "A"

The Troofers are no longer doing the straight-out confrontation thing, but Senator McCain clearly knows what he's dealing with here and stands up strongly for the 9-11 Commission. I'm somewhat amused at the mention of Sibel Edmonds' amazing revelations about Turkish infiltration; like anybody thinks the Turks pulled off 9-11.

Paulistas Gone Wild

We have been criticized for connecting the Ron Paul supporters and the truthers, but it seems they do have a lot in common, from the WSJ:

Taco John, the online moniker of Isaac Lopez, a 32-year-old technology marketer in Vancouver, Wash., is one of many cyber-soldiers for Dr. Paul, the Texas congressman, gynecologist and vociferous opponent of the Iraq war. The Paul brigade has largely drawn attention for its fund-raising prowess, raising a record $4.2 million online in a single day in November and leaving the 72-year-old politician with more cash on hand than several rivals and a $1 million TV ad budget for New Hampshire. But some Paul supporters are displaying an aggressive side that seems to spill beyond advocacy into harassment of those who disagree or fail to show Dr. Paul sufficient respect.

Taco John, for example, posted contact information for a university professor who called Dr. Paul "unqualified to be president." He also provided information on how to reach several reporters with whom he quibbled, as well as the Iowa Republican Party after it helped set rules for a debate -- later canceled -- that could have excluded the low-polling Dr. Paul.

Kevin Barrett anyone?

And apparently they have the same behavior as truthers on the Internet:

"Basically, it got to the point where someone could put up a post saying they were going to the bathroom, and a dozen Paultards would comment, 'Vote for Ron Paul while you're there,' along with another dozen warnings of the Zionist conspiracy in the toilet," says Erick Erickson, founder of popular conservative blog Redstate. A month ago, the site banned posts from some Paul supporters, branding them "MoRons."

Afterward, the site was "deluged" with comments and "swarms and swarms" of hate mail, Mr. Erickson says. He changed the site's phone number, and says other blog owners have contacted him seeking advice on discouraging Paul supporters from posting.

Troofers Stalking Glenn Beck

We have seen this so many times in the past, I wasn't even going to bother making a post on it, but this time a bunch of troofers stalking Glenn Beck while he is out promoting his new book is taking a bizarre turn, they are claiming that he has Secret Service protection:

U.S. taxpayers footed the bill for four police to man the event at the second appearance in Columbus, along with several other plain clothed officers and even Secret Service officials who, according to demonstrators, questioned Ron Paul supporters.

Activists claimed that Beck's employees admitted Secret Service were chaperoning Beck, leading to charges that Beck is being directly bankrolled and protected by the government to spew his propaganda.

One man was questioned about Ron Paul as he lined up to meet Beck.

"I know it wasn't one of these people (the Ron Paul supporters)," he remarked.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Great News for Leo Wanta Fans!

That $4.5 trillion he had? Because Citibank won't pay it to him, via treble damages and interest it's now up to $14.55 trillion. Or even more:

Therefore, by escorting the Principals away from the bank, Citibank recklessly increased its liability to the Ambassador from $4.85 trillion, to a prospective $14.55 trillion. Had the Editor of this service been a banker, he would have calculated the interest on the basis of overnight interest accruals, which would have raised the rough estimate of $350 billion interest payable, to between $1.0 and $2.0 trillion. Therefore, the actual triple damages for which Citibank would be liable, following its reckless 'conversion' action on 20th November, could be as high as $19.5 trillion.

If this continues, Ambassador Leo Wanta is going to have all the money in the world.

Archduke Ferdinand Was An Inside Job!

My longtime blogger buddy Rick Moran takes a look at the conspiracy theories and compares them to the historical assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the event that led to World War I. It's a fascinating story and I have to admit being unaware of the details.

The conspiracy had several assassins spread out along a motorcade route where Ferdinand and his wife would be taken to the town hall for a formal welcome. The first two assassins lost heart completely and failed to make an attempt. They were armed with bombs and pistols. Further along the route, another assassin made the first attempt on the Archduke’s life, tossing a bomb that bounced off Ferdinand’s car and landed behind it, exploding when a follow-up car passed over it. The bomb injured 20 people and shook up Ferdinand’s party considerably. The would be assassin swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped in the river – neither of which killed him. He was promptly arrested.

Also failing to act despite being armed with bombs and pistols were several other assassins standing nearby including young Gavrilo Princip. The 20 year old would get another chance shortly.

Rick then shows how a conspiracy theorist would reconstruct things to implicate far more groups than the actual plotters.

I do think he's a little unfair here:

While there is certainly enough paranoia on the right about 9/11 and “The New World Order,” black helicopter conspiracies, the driving force behind 9/11 truthers, Kennedy conspiracists, and Area 51 nutcases has been the far left of American politics.

I am not aware that the Area 51 stuff has any political correlation. Yes, the Kennedy conspiracy theorists do tend to be left of center. And the 9-11 crackpots are just crackpots; there's a significant libertarian aspect to the "Truthers" and yes, a significant Leftist element. But as we have documented here endlessly, many on the left end of the spectrum have done terrific work debunking the conspiracy theories. David Corn, George Monbiot, Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn have all dismissed the arguments of the nutbars. Daily Kos has a standard rule against Truther Diaries and while Democratic Underground allows them, they're in a separate section of the forum and cannot be voted to the "Best" page.

This is not to deny that a large percentage of Truthers hail from the portside. But again, that's a large percentage of a small percentage of people overall. In other words, let's say that 66% of all Truthers are left of center. But if only 4.6% of people are Truthers to begin with (defined fairly narrowly as MIHOP per the Zogby Poll), then only about 3% of Americans are both Truther and left of center.

Again, I have lots of problems with the Scripps poll that is the basis for the post in the first place; I think they've mingled in a lot of people who aren't Truthers to get the 62% figure. People who believe the media's take on the August 6, 2001 PDB, for example.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Paul Isaac's Theory

Those of you who've been around for awhile may remember Paul as the auxiliary fireman who got into a verbal fracas with Jason Bermas on 9-11-06. We cheered his pointing out that it was disrespectful for the conspiracy nuts to be there on the fifth anniversary with so many mourning family members.

It wasn't until later that we found out that Paul is a conspiracy theorist himself, but we still appreciate his support for the families in their time of pain. For awhile he was a member of the JREF Forum, but I seem to remember that he got bounced for violating the terms of service.

The brochure cover below from a city publication prior to 2000 shows a strange looking shadow on the north face of Tower 1 coming from 250 Broadway which stood next to WTC7. Paul noticed this strange shadow, pointing out that the sun could not have caused this due to the direction of its path. Why would an official city document have this oddity? Could this signify something ominous? Could this shadow be pointing towards the Keyspan Tanks? Note the yellow line in the image below. These are questions Paul is calling to our attention.

I think the two tanks are the ones that were mentioned in at least one of the versions of Loose Change. But aside from that, I don't have a clue as to what Paul thinks he's discovered.

Marine for 9/11 Truth and Quantum Building Collapses

The troofers always fail to explain the contradiction between their claims of 84% support, and the fact that they have difficulty getting more than a dozen people together for any of their protests. Johnny Wave, of the misleadingly titled Marines for 9/11 Truth, at least has a bit of honesty in this radio interview, where he admits he is the only one, right after he brags about being a high school dropout. From 12 minutes in:

I need someone out next to me. I need some help. Servicemembers aren't putting on me. No, I am the only servicemember in the United States of America getting out there for 9/11 truth. I need some help, and I am asking for help right now! And if you are not giving it to me, stop e-mailing me.

A poor lonely individual....

Richard Gage from Achitects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth comes on later in the show, obviously enjoying his new-found cult celebrity. As anyone who listened to his recent debate knows, he is a true believer in the magic of thermite. Anytime he needs thermite to be an explosive, it is the world's most powerful one, anytime he needs it to be an incendiary, it is 3000 degrees and completely silent. Kind of like quantum mechanics applied to building collapses. It can be in multiple states of reality at once. From the 33 minute mark:

Guess what, we are not arguing with structural engineers what fire can and cannot do to steel. It is irrelevant. What we stick with is the evidence for controlled demolition. It's a completely different subject. What jet fuel can do to a building is irrelevant. By the way it can't do anything to a building that a normal office fire can do, but you don't even have to go there. Just talk about the beams being hurled laterally at 55 miles per hour out of the building, with their... impacting other buildings 500 feet away, their ends dripping with molten metal, having been cut to perfect 30 foot lengths.

Oh really, so the thermite cut the beams to a perfect 30 foot lengths, and then they remained there suspended in space until huge explosive charges shot them out sideways? What a dastardly plan!

Yet Another Poll

Nearly two-thirds of Americans think it is possible that some federal officials had specific warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings, according to a Scripps Howard News Service/Ohio University poll.

An earlier Scripps Howard/Ohio University survey, conducted in July 2006, revealed that more than one-third of Americans thought federal officials assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East.

"What (the recent survey) could mean is that people are thinking that the Bush administration is incompetent, that there were warnings out there and they chose to put their attention on other things," Fenster said.

Indeed, it sounds like the poll question got MIHOP, LIHOP and LIHOI (Incompetence) mixed together. Unfortunately I cannot locate the poll itself to find out the questions asked, although as we saw in last year's poll, there is an indication that this was a poll that may have self-selected conspiracy theorists:

A national survey of 811 adult residents of the United States conducted by Scripps and Ohio University found that more than a third believe in a broad smorgasbord of conspiracy theories including the attacks, international plots to rig oil prices, the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the government's knowledge of intelligent life from other worlds.

Suppose you're getting asked these questions. A reasonable person might decide, hey, this is a bunch of nonsense and hang up, where a conspiracy theorist might be more inclined to follow through to the end.

Friday, November 23, 2007

The Continuing Saga Of Steve Campbell

We've posted a time or three on the strange doings on a small TV channel in Aspen, Colorado, which was happy to broadcast some of Steve Campbell's "Truther" videos, but woke up when he wanted them to play a Holocaust Denial video. Better late than never, I suppose, but Campbell's not taking the decision lightly. In a letter to the editor of the local paper, he complains bitterly:

The only conclusion that can be drawn is that this has nothing whatsoever to do with hate, and everything to do with an attempt to hide the truth. After all, you wouldn’t want indoctrinated and brainwashed Jews and “Christian” Zionists to learn that 6 million Jews were not deliberately murdered in concentration camps. According to the best information available, approximately 300,000 people died during the war in all the concentration camps from all causes. And the vast majority of those were from disease.

You wouldn’t want everyone to know that Auschwitz had a post office, a medical clinic, dental care, a theater, a symphony made up of inmates, a swimming pool, a brothel, a library and organized soccer games.

A swimming pool for the guards. I don't know about the brothel, but I'd be awfully surprised if it didn't turn out to be also for the guards and featuring the involuntary participation of young Jewish women. And get this bit:

You don’t want your fellow Jews to learn that the Zionists and Hitler were in collusion and that the vast majority of the suffering of the Jewish people during World War II can be directly attributed to the Zionists who were willing to sacrifice their “lesser brethren” so that the state of Israel would become a reality.

What suffering of the Jewish people? I thought they were shouting "goooooooooalll" at soccer matches and playing the tuba in the symphony?

Let the Boycotts Begin

The general strike went pretty much unnoticed, as well as the "Let's take a long coffee break strike", so now the troofers have formed 911blacklist.org, which lists company that advertise for programs they don't like, so a small number of troofers without jobs can not spend the money they aren't earning buying products they would not have purchased anyway. This could end modern economics as we know it! Hilariously their initial list includes those New World Order minions at the AARP. You just take your supplemental life insurance and...

Blacklisted! American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) advertises with CNN on the Glenn Beck Show. Please use the contact info below to let AARP know that you will not support their organization by becoming a member or subscribe to any of their publications and that you will tell ...

The Most Inept Troofer Gets on Rush Limbaugh

This is hilarious. Somebody named Moe from Columbus, Ohio, gets on the Rush Limbaugh program and proceeds to educate Rush on the real facts about 9-11:

CALLER: All right. Well, listen to me. You're quick to play sound bites on the Democrats and all the dumb stuff they say and done. I'm not knocking that. But you have not one time played anything on Condoleezza's court trial, when she was brought up on charges for not letting the American people know about the 9/11 incident. She was warned six months, three months, and three weeks before it happened. Before you cut me off. Now, the funny part is, you're quick to say that the Republicans didn't know about it. Well, two weeks before they went down, Cheney bought insurance on the World Trade Center. Now, him being in the circle that he was in, you think Bush didn't buy insurance on it? You think Condoleezza didn't buy insurance on it? You got all these people out here thinking that the Democrats are the bad ones, while you guys are the ones who -- I'm not saying you, but Bush and them are the ones who didn't let anybody know. Now, if they'd have told some people that there is a possibility that these planes were going to be hijacked and rammed into buildings, do you think they would have flown? Do you think they would have flown? They couldn't tell them, because this is the reason why we got to go to war. Now, don't say (unintelligible) but we're gonna get insurance on it. We're going to get insurance on the buildings just in case they happen to go down. So when you say that they didn't know about it, dude, they knew about it. They knew about it six months before it happened. When she was on trial, that guy that was -- again, whoever it was, the prosecutor socked it to her. He read back the memo she had on her desk. He asked her, "What part is not important enough to alert the American people?"

Rush, of course, may not know specifics about Trooferism, but he quickly spots the two gaping flaws in the claims:

RUSH: How could a private citizen buy insurance on buildings owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New York City and New York State?

(Note: Silverstein did not own the buildings; he had a lease to operate them, so Rush is technically right here, although I'm sure he doesn't know the details.)

RUSH: Condoleezza's never been in a court trial.

After Moe gets off, Rush does a humorous bit about what awaits Moe now that he's spilled the beans on Cheney's insurance scam:

RUSH: Moe, one more thing. Since you've blown the whistle on this whole insurance scam of Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, I may as well tell you something else that you may not know, since you've blown this up and everybody now knows about it. You, sir, Moe, are a candidate for waterboarding. I understand that Cheney has expanded it to domestic threats, and you, Moe, have definitely qualified. Now, you constitute a domestic threat with your inability to keep secrets. Nobody will be interested in how you found out about it, Moe. Well, they will be, actually. That's where the waterboarding comes in. The only people happy about this, Moe, are the insurance companies, since you've blown the whistle on Condi's scam. They're not going to have to pay her the $5 billion in insurance she took out on the World Trade Center. Maybe not Cheney, either. So, Moe, you have caused a lot of people to lose (perhaps, maybe) a lot of money here. Some people just don't know when to shut up. I tried! I did everything I could, but he wouldn't listen, and since we don't cut people off...

Hilariously the guy who posted this over at 9-11 Blogger reads that as "threatening" the idiot Troofer.

Rush then gets into some spot-on analysis:

If they really believed this stuff -- what they're saying is, if it were true -- action is required. If the government in fact blew up the World Trade Centers, for whatever reason, if they actually did it, if these people actually believe that the administration is spying on them and monitoring their phone calls, if they actually think that Bush lied about everything to go into Iraq, don't you think that there would be far more public demands and protests in the streets on the part of these people for redress and to stop it? These are really, really serious allegations, and I don't think they believe it. I think that they are just deranged. I think that they need something to give their lives meaning.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Loose Change Presser

Ron Paul: Dancing With the Troofers

As others have pointed out, Ron Paul was on Alex Jones' radio show yesterday, trying to pick up the support of those who hold his paranoid economic and political views, without endorsing the conspiracy theories outright. This little bit caught my attention.

Paul: A lot of people’s standard of living is going down. Seventy-five percent of the American people say they are now having economic problems, and yet our government keeps telling us there are no problems, no inflation, everyone is employed and yet the people are hurting and it is mainly because their purchasing power is being lost. It is the dollar value that is really the big issue.

Jones: Are you worried about this triggering a credit crisis in credit cards and then maybe even the derivatives.

Paul: You know, I think so, I think maybe that is the vulnerability. You have economic chaos, then you have political chaos and then once again, if you have a 9/11 incident or something like that, they use that to do the things that they had planned all along. So if we have more economic chaos there will be individuals who say, well we need more government, not less government. That is our greatest threat.

I have no idea where is he coming up with the 75% number, probably the usual CT cherry picking. The rest sounds like he has been watching Terrorstorm though.

Thanks to the Truthers

Nope, not being ironic here. I thank the Truthers (for once I won't use the scare quotes) for forcing me to educate myself on 9-11 better. For exposing me to many more of the heroes of that day that I did not know. We all know about Beamer, Glick, Burnett, Bingham, Nacke and the others on Flight 93. But there were many others, including:

Frank DeMartini, who used a crowbar to pry open elevator doors, saving many lives in the process.

Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong, flight attendants on American Airlines Flight 11, who calmly relayed information on the hijackers to the ground, giving us our first glimpse of the horror that was to ensue that day.

John O'Neill, who pursued Osama Bin Laden for years at the FBI, only to be killed by the latter's minions after taking over security at the World Trade Center.

The amazing Rick Rescorla. If you don't know who he is, take a minute or two to Google him; you'll be glad you did:

"Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming?"

WTC-7 Post Collapse Photos Show Building Collapsed to South

This photo is taken looking roughly east, from the Verizon Building looking over WTC 7 towards the Post Office. As you can see in the foreground, a substantial portion of the north side of the building ended up on top of the pile, which means what, children? That's right, that the building collapsed to the south. Of course, you can't see that in the videos, because you're looking at the north side of the building (from a pretty great distance I might add).

Here's another photo, looking generally southwest.

Again, we see a large segment of the north side of the building resting atop the pile.

Update: As pointed out by our buddy Kate at Debunking 9-11, not all the building fell to the south; Fiterman Hall which was to the north, was also damaged. Can you say asymmetrical collapse?

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The Truth-Seeker

Diane over at NYC Activist continues to impress me with her well-reasoned posts. Check out this one on why the Troofers shouldn't hang their hats on controlled demolition.

For an example of what I mean by overstating the case, a lot of folks have claimed that the sheer speed of collapse inherently violates Newton’s laws.

In fact, the towers did not fall with exactly free-fall acceleration. They fell a little bit slower than that.

The question is whether they fell slower enough to be consistent with an alleged purely “natural” collapse. That’s a quantitative question, not one that can be answered with simple hand-waving.

Zdnenek Bazant and other defenders of the official story have claimed that, once the collapse of either of the Twin Towers got going, the resistance of the columns to being shattered was “negligible” compared to the impact of the top part of the building falling on top of them.

If indeed this claim is true, then what should be the expected collapse time? Using my own oversimplified computer model for WTC 1, assuming a top-down collapse starting at the 95th floor, with totally inelastic collisions and no matter being ejected out of the building, I got 10.5 seconds for the time of descent of the collapse front. Adjusting my model to eject about 70% of the mass of each floor outside the building (probably an unrealistically high estimate), I was able to increase the fall time only to 12 seconds.

So, it seems to me that we can’t prove demolition based on collapse times alone. Based on my own calculations, the fall time might be consistent with the official story, if indeed it’s possible that the resistance of the columns to being shattered could be “negligible” compared to the impact of the top part of the building falling on top of them. Is the latter claim plausible? That too is a quantitative question. It can be answered only by people with an in-depth familiarity with the properties of steel, including how steel deforms.

And she goes on to admit that's not an area in which she has expertise.

Now that strikes me as a truth-seeker. The post is not perfect (she apparently does not know about the photos of WTC 7 which clearly show the building collapsed slightly to the south, not symmetrically by any means). But she's serious about learning, as we can see from here:

For more about this issue, see the September 11 archives page on the Progressive Review site, including a synopsis of a 1976 book by New York City Fire Commissioner John O’Hagan, High Rise Fire and Life Safety, in which O’Hagan worried about the possibility of the Twin Towers collapsing due to fire.

Whether or not these worries were in fact justified on the grounds given, it would seem that the hypothetical possibility of a steel high-rise building collapsing was not totally unheard of among fire fighters or among fire safety experts before 2001.

It will be instructive to see how the "Truth" movement reacts to someone like Diane. Those who are sincerely interested in uncovering what happened that day will embrace her honesty and diligence because if there really is something to be uncovered, (something I admittedly doubt strongly) it will be folks like her who will uncover it. And those who are interested in selling DVDs and books and holding conferences will undoubtedly attack her for failing to toe the "Controlled Demolition is Truth inviolate" line.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Interesting Review of Zeitgeist

I've come to the conclusion that this movie is as popular as it is because it appeals to three potential groups: anti-religious, anti-government and anti-banks. So even while recognizing it as the virtually complete BS that it is, S. Corey Thomas can't help liking it.

Yes, this is an outlandish, grandiose, and paranoid take on reality. While there are hefty kernels of truth rattling around throughout, the film does some Olympian stretching in its ambitious game of connect-the-dots. And as might be expected, it is rife with inaccuracies and dubious scholarship from start to finish, as several critics have pointed out. Yet at its best, Zeitgeist is a flashy, riveting piece of renegade agitprop aimed at rousing an increasingly stupefied public to the world crumbling around their computer screens. Eye-catching visuals and a healthy disregard for copyright law make for some engaging segues, featuring voice-overs from countercultural icons like George Carlin, Bill Hicks, and Richard Alpert. We are even treated to highlights of an apoplectic Peter Finch railing against the hypocrisies of our times in Sidney Lumet’s Network. If its sights are on a mass media, short-attention-span demographic, Zeitgeist has its bases covered.

Daily Kos Allows Crackpot Diary

Perhaps because it is written by David Lindorff, and perhaps because it's seen as tangential to the Blackwater story, but it's 9-11 nuttery being shoehorned in.

What makes this history of particular interest is that Alex Brown was the investment bank that handled most of the suspicious short-selling "puts" that were placed on the stocks of four companies—United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Merrill Lynch—that were pummeled by the 9-11 attacks.

As has been reported in Bloomberg Financial News Service reports and in the San Francisco Chronicle, in the several days preceding September 11, 2001, unidentified investors placed an unusual number of "puts" on the stocks of the two airlines whose planes were hijacked that day, as well as on the two investment banks, one of which occupied 22 floors of one of the World Trade Center towers and the other of which owned a building directly across the street which was significantly damaged and forced to close down.

The stocks of those four companies, following the attacks and the collapse of the Twin Towers, subsequently tanked, making the combined puts worth about $16 million.According to the San Francisco Chronicle, no one collected the $2.5 million in profits from the puts placed on United Airlines. The identities of the investors in the put orders have never been disclosed by Alex Brown.

Incredibly, there was never any serious investigation of these peculiar and suspicious investments, though they clearly suggest that someone knew something was going to happen that would make those four companies’ stocks plunge in value.

The US corporate news media has never pursued this story or in many cases even reported it, nor was it seriously investigated by the FBI or the 9-11 commission.

Yes, the US corporate news media has never pursued this story. Well, except for Bloomberg and the SF Chronicle, which is the only reason Lindorff ever heard of it. Hilariously he repeats the silliest claim:

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, no one collected the $2.5 million in profits from the puts placed on United Airlines.

I've gone over this before. The reason the SF Chronicle reported that no one had collected the profits on the United put options is because they had not expired as of the date the Chronicle wrote their story (September 29, 2001).

These were October options, which expired on the third Saturday of that month, or October 20, 2001. And remember, according to the 9-11 Commission (which did investigate the options) the investor who bought put options on United also bought shares of American Airlines a few days before the attacks. If they'd really had warning of 9-11 wouldn't they have been short AA and not long?

More disturbing than that Lindorff repeats the usual crackpot talking points on the put options is that the Daily Kos community apparently tolerated the posting; we see none of the "Troll Diary" tags on this one, even though the first tag is 9-11.

Quick Hits

Maybe not worthy of a full post on their own, but little bits I've noticed.

Remember the constant bleating from the Troofers about how the FEMA report on the building collapses says regarding WTC-7 that "the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence? They never quote the whole paragraph that's from:

"The loss of the east penthouse on the videotape suggests that the collapse event was initiated by the loss of structural integrity in one of the transfer systems. Losee of structural integrity was likely a result of weakening caused by fires on the 5th to 7th floors. The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue."

And as we have noted, low probability events occur all the time.

Pyroclastic Flows? Richard Gage and others are very fond of the term "pyroclastic" flows, and in their minds they are referring to the cauliflower-like shape of the dust clouds. But the dictionary defines "pyroclastic" as "Composed chiefly of rock fragments of volcanic origin." Unless Mr Gage is claiming that volcanoes brought down the towers, I think he needs to stick to "cauliflower-like".

Dylan is apparently in Jolly Olde England for the English premiere of his film. His itinerary is posted here with some amusing comments, although for the record I think the trashing of Dylan's ordering a Guinness is a bit over the top.

As Long As They Don't Sing That Judy Wood Song

Once again, they are beyond parody.

Welcome to www.musiciansfor911truth.org This website is still in it's initial planning stages and I am in the process of gathering musicians to sign up in support of 911 truth. This website IS a discussion outlet and a place for like minded musicians to explore and share the idea of supporting a REAL investigation into the events surrounding the 911 attack. Popular Mechanics, The 911 Commission Report, NIST and others have not answered the important questions regarding the attacks on 9/11/01. This site will contain music, links, ideas, and real discussion about 911, the war in Iraq, and the Patriot movement as a whole. Please leave your comments and suggestions below as this site gets built.

The Giants Tremble

In the six years since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, the mainstream media in America has largely been a mouthpiece of the Bush administration. All of the major networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and others had until recently, been silently complicit in the cover-up of the events of that day, the un-Constitutional wars that would follow, and the steady erosion of our Constitutionally protected rights.

When the "9-11 Truth" community grew to the point that it could no longer be ignored, these same networks that had ignored the issue for so long began to attack individuals and groups of individuals who were seeking answers to the lingering questions which still remain about 9-11. As the success of various truth movements continues to broaden, these attacks have now escalated to include Peace activists, monetary reform activists, and now even supporters of Presidential candidate Ron Paul. Recent attacks have suggested that the 9-11 movement, Peace activists, and Ron Paul supporters are terrorists, and some in the media have implied that we should be silenced.

And so in retaliation, they are going to boycott advertisers of products who sponsor those networks. To which I say, check out the generic section of the supermarket, because if you're going to boycott the ABCNNBCBS's sponsors, you're going to be skipping the rest of the store.

Boycotts like this only work when you have some sort of significant group of outraged individuals. Conservatives got Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect bounced. Liberals got Rush Limbaugh off the ESPN pregame show. But Troofers are nowhere near as large a group. Four point six percent, people!

This might work as a solidarity campaign to rally the Troofs; but the notion that it's going to have any effect on advertisers is quite ridiculous.

Democracy For America Allowing Troofer Posts?

The old "Dean for America" group eventually became "Democracy for America", but the Dean family is still running the show, with Howard's brother in the chair. Apparently despite Howard's famed speculation about how Bush knew about 9-11 because he was warned by the Saudis, DFA has (much like Kos and many of the larger liberal blogs) distanced themselves from the conspiracy nutbars. But perhaps that is changing?

Where are all the video tapes taken by the FBI from all the local business and buildings after the plane (?) crashed into the Pentagon on 9-11?

The Citgo video was released and didn't show much of anything. Again, the kooks have this weird notion that the building they never tire of telling us was the "most secure" in the world, also had dozens of cameras from neighboring buildings aimed right at it.

It's disturbing that there seem to be cracks developing in the defense the Left has erected against these wacky conspiracy theories.

Still Moron Sibel Edmonds

Bradblog attempts to flog its story from a couple weeks ago, that Sibel Edmonds is prepared to "tell all". Except there's nothing new here, so they wheel out Daniel Ellsburg to let us know that this is even bigger than the Pentagon Papers.

As usual, Sibel does her hootchie-kootchie dancer routine, pretending to be about to show us everything while the choice bits remain unseen. She's made sure to set the bar so high that network TV is unlikely to bite, but when alternative outlets are mentioned, somehow they are unacceptable:

"What about the BBC? Would you do that?," we asked.

"Why am I going on BBC? This is about this country! This is about this country, and more of America needs to know the true face of the mainstream media," she exclaimed.

As usual with cranks like Sibel, the entire media is in on the plot, as are the Democrats:

Edmonds revealed an additional tasty morsel while wrapping up one of our recent conversations. One that might help explain the American media's reluctance to jump at the chance for a scoop: apparently many of them already know the story.

"I will name the name of major publications who know the story, and have been sitting on it --- almost a year and a half."

"How do you know they have the story?," we asked.

"I know they have it because people from the FBI have come in and given it to them. They've given them the documents and specific case-numbers on my case."

"These are agents that have said to me, 'if you can get Congress to subpoena me I'll come in and tell it under oath.'"

Yet, despite promises she says she had received from staffers in Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office to hold hearings once he became chairman of the House Oversight Committee, they no longer respond to her. "The only reason they couldn't hold hearings [previously]," they'd told her, "was because the Republicans were blocking it."

They're not blocking it anymore. Ever since the Democrats have taken control of the House. Nonetheless, there are still no plans for hearings. Even with more than 30,000 people having signed her petition, calling on Waxman to do so.

WACs Confront Silverstein

Troofer McKinney To Run for Prez as Green

Haven't seen any polls incorporating her into the mix. It will be interesting to see if this puts a brake on the Ron Paul Express.

"It is high time that we get down to the work that will make all people feel included in an American society that benefits everyone," said McKinney. "There is so much we can do to significantly reduce poverty, address this country's crumbling infrastructure, create meaningful jobs, provide quality health care for all, mend foreign relations, deal with climate change and re-prioritize dynamics of war and conflict."

"My campaign will draw many women, people of color and disaffected voters from every party into the Green Party," McKinney continued. "I don't care if someone is red, black, white, brown, yellow or polka dot," she exclaimed. "I will work with anyone."

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Who Are the 20% Who Will Live?

I got to wondering that this afternoon as I listened to Alex Jones and Steve Quayle on Alex's show (MP3) from yesterday. The segment begins about 90 minutes into the MP3. Alex claims that most of the callers to a show that he was on agreed with him about everything except the killing of 80% of the planet that he claims in Endgame. And they disagreed with him not on whether the elites are planning that, they thought it was a good idea.

Steve does break a news story. Apparently billionaires and hundred-millionaires are fleeing the country because they know that they are not on the inside. Which kind of surprises me; I figured those guys had to be in on the whole New World Order thing. This is a pretty exclusive club if those guys can't get in.

They even get into weirder stuff; sex with robots, whether clones will have souls (the old Frankenstein question). Apparently the whole idea of killing off 80% of humanity is not Peak Oil, it's a blood sacrifice required to bring Lucifer into the world.

BTW, the site that has the Alex Jones MP3s also has Loose Change Final Cut. No warranties as to whether it's real, but this site usually has the goods.

Turd In the Punchbowl?

Some of you may recall that Alex Jones described David Icke that way in a Jon Ronson documentary on the latter. Jones claimed that Icke had a lot of good information (the punchbowl), but he ruined it with the shape-shifting lizards (the turd).

Over at the Looser forums, a poster notes that Alex's show yesterday was quite the barnburner:

But man, that last 40 or so minutes with Steve Quayle.

They talked about how the elites of the nwo are possessed by non human entities

He and Alex Jones were talking about how the elites are Lucerferians, and how they do stuff like 9/11 and Iraq war as blood sacrifices to the devil

A few years ago, like most people I woulda rolled my eyes at all this talk. And while Im not a Christian or religious, I have to say it kind of all makes sense.

Seeker 135:

There's nothing common going on anymore. A lot of data that made no sense in years past can now be connected to current events (ancient carvings of rockets in the sky, confirmed UFO sightings.) An open mind is the best weapon now.

There are indeed quite a few open minds in the "Truth" movement.

I'm downloading yesterday's Alex Jones show and will relate the lowlights.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Alex Jones On the Shire Network News

This is a little old, but I just came across it (I hope Pat didn't post this and I just missed it). The Shire Network News, who interviewed Pat and I way back in the early days, has posted an "interview" with lead 9/11 nutjob and Loose Change Executive Producer Alex Jones. Quite hilarious.

Somebody Get A Taser

Kudos to Lee Hamilton for sticking to his guns against the fruitcakes in this video. Hilariously, one of the Troofers claims 64% of the country believe the US government was behind the attacks. The scattered applause in the audience sort of puts the lie to that claim.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Denying the Holocaust and the Reality of 9/11

Based on a recommendation from a reader, I recently picked up and read "Denying the Holocaust" by Emory Religious Studies Professor Deborah Lipstadt. Now we have spoken before on the overlap of Holocaust and 9/11 deniers (no, that does not mean every 9/11 truther is an anti-Semite, but they certainly have their representation) but I was struck by the sheer number of similarities between the two movements. This began even from the first page of the preface where the author mentions that a poll showed 22% of Americans believed it was possible the Holocaust never happened. Kind of puts all of those truther polls in perspective.

The similarities do not end there, the deniers of different sorts share so many techniques and logical fallacies that in many ways they are interchangeable but for the specifics of the subject matter. Some examples:

Ideology

Holocaust deniers, while they may claim to be interested in historical accuracy always have a hidden agenda. It may not always be the same, they range from pure anti-Semites to Germans angry about their countries past, but they have them. How many times have you heard some truther start talking about "faster than the speed of gravity" and before you know it they are ranting about police states and the upcoming invasion of Iran.

A Pretense to Scholarship

The truthers have their Journal of 9/11 Studies, the Holocaust Deniers have the Journal for Historical Review. One minor difference though, the Holocaust Deniers have actually tried to get legitimate historical journals to publish their work. They were unsuccesful of course. The 9/11 quacks, to the best of my knowledge, have never even bothered.

Anomaly Hunting

With their bizarre logic the Holocaust deniers search for any inconsistency in any testimony or evidence as proof that the entire story is false. The troofers... well, just watch Loose Change 1 through 4 for all the examples of that you will need.

Desire for Acceptance

Both groups eagerly try for acceptance and recognition, going by the belief that all publicity is good. The author incidently, although she is a leading scholar in this area, refuses to debate Holocaust Deniers, feeling that giving them a platform and a pretense to legitimacy outweighs the educational benefit. In many ways I would have to agree with her.

Quote Mining and Incestous Claims

This quotation from page 106 of the book, could be made about most truther claims I have seen:

This liberal borrowing was not something out of the ordinary for deniers, who make it a practise to draw on other deniers not only for their sources but for verification. They have long engaged in what has been described as an "incestous merry-go-round [of] cross-fertilizing and compounding [of] falsehood.

"Research" as Publicity

Willis Carto, the guy who is helping sponser the conference that the Loose Change Boys are attending this weekend, once offered $50,000 to anyone who could "Find a Holocaust Victim". Carto actually ended up owing a bunch of money to one of those Holocaust victims (made into a TV movie starring Leonard Nimoy no less) but Jimmy Walter just gave up on his million dollar challenge.

Claims of Censorship

A man named Bradley Smith began running ads in college newspapers questioning the Holocaust, merely to cause a controversy. Whenever he was turned down he would scream that legitimate academic research was being censored. Just go over to 911 Blogger and count the screams of "censorship" just because they are not the lead for that nights episode of the evening news.

Standards of Evidence

Thousands of witnesses don't mean anything because they are Zionist shills. Vague speculation is more proof than that. Need I say more?

Cui Bono?

One of the arguments that Al Qaeda did not carry out 9/11 was that they did not benefit from it. Likewise, Holocaust Deniers have (and I was stunned by this idiocy) claimed that the Nazis would never have murdered millions of Jews, because they did not benefit from it. Their war machine could have used those resources better. Of course both of these are offensive and ignore the ideology behind the respective movements.

On the whole a fascinating book, albeit about a disgusting topic. Anyone who is concerned about the hijacking of our history by self-serving bigots, would be served by reading it.

London Premiere of Loose Change Final Cut

Is highlighted over at 9-11 Blogger. Clicking to the venue's site, we discover that they managed to book the theater for a single, matinee (12:00 Noon) performance.

Like James, I'm pretty stunned at how far the Loose Change phenomenon has fallen; from a cover story on Vanity Fair in 2006 to almost no attention in 2007. Last year's elections were a major factor; when leftists could claim that the Republicans were rigging the elections, a Hail Mary pass like 9-11 "Truth" might seem worth attempting. In addition, the nutbars were all convinced that getting the Democrats in would result in a new investigation and maybe impeachment. Now that both of those options seem off the table (even Kucinich has not started his proposed hearings), the left no longer seems fertile ground for expanding the movement.

More than anything else, LCFC suffers from bad timing. As Shakespeare noted, there is a tide in the affairs of men that, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Had LCFC been available at the crest of the 9-11 "Truth" movement in September of 2006, it might have been successful at least in terms of making money. Had it been out in September of 2007, it would at least have hit the cyclical interest that peaks around the anniversary. But November seems poor timing. Here are the visits to 9-11 Blogger for the last 15 months:

So you can see that in the last two years there has been a steep fall-off in readership at 9-11 Blogger following the anniversary. In 2006 it came in November and lasted through February 2007; in 2007 it came in October. We show a similar pattern in our statistics as well; a gradual increase throughout the summer, a peak in September, and then a sharp decline in October.

Other Blogs

9-11 Conspiracy Smasher has a neat cartoon on the topic of "The Wildfires in California Were An Inside Job!" Of course, as we have pointed out, you cannot parody the conspiracy theorists; many of them believe that the wildfires were an inside job.

9-11 Booger points out that Big Pharma benefited from Bill Maher's memorable putdown of the Troofers.

Our longtime buddy TAM examines the claims and counterclaims of "disinfo" and "cointelpro" and comes to the logical conclusion.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Maybe It's Time To Take Ron Paul Seriously

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found Hillary Clinton leading Rudy Giuliani by three percentage points in a four-way race that includes Ron Paul running as a Libertarian candidate and Ralph Nader representing the Green Party. The poll shows Clinton earning 42% of the vote while Giuliani attracts 39%. Ron Paul is the choice for 8%, Ralph Nader is preferred by 4% and 7% are not sure (see crosstabs).

The interesting thing is that Paul actually does better among Democrats than he does among Republicans:

Perhaps because of his position on the War in Iraq, Paul attracts more support from Democrats than Republicans. He also earns 14% of the vote from unaffiliated voters. Paul is currently seeking the Republican Presidential Nomination and is running sixth behind Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee.

I have consistently trashed Paul's chances, because he never seemed to be registering in the polls. Okay, that's changed. He's still a longshot at best, particularly to get the Republican nomination. But he's not as much a longshot as he used to be.

Phantom Flight 11

I mentioned the other day that the FAA and the military both thought that American Airlines Flight 11 was still airborne well after the North Tower was struck and that there were concerns that it was headed to Washington, and that this was what an Air Force officer was referring to when he said "We chased many phantoms that day" and that it did not refer to "insertions" onto the radar screens of air traffic controllers.

Jason Bermas, on his show yesterday (mostly devoted to trashing our criticisms of Final Cut) claimed that the Air Force was chasing a real blip on the screen. Not true.

The plane's course, had it continued south past New York in the direction it was flying before it dipped below radar coverage, would have had it headed on a straight course toward D.C. This was all controllers were going on; they were never tracking an actual plane on the radar after losing American 11 near Manhattan, but if it had been flying low enough, the plane could have gone undetected. "After talking to a supervisor, I made the call and said [American 11] is still in the air, and it's probably somewhere over New Jersey or Delaware heading for Washington, D.C.," Scoggins told me.

Bolding added for emphasis.

Jason also talked a lot about what we didn't mention, like the fact that two of the hijackers lived with an FBI informant in 2000. Jason, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the things you actually got right. That Khalid al-Midhar and another hijacker lived with an FBI informant is well-established. We could talk a lot about the missed opportunities, and the fact that al-Midhar was not put on a terrorist watch list until after he was in the country, even though the CIA knew he attended a terrorist meeting in 2000. Nobody is denying that mistakes were made; that one in particular was costly.

One of the Problems With Removing Final Cut from Google Video

In addition, Dylan was so struck by the look of his Loose Change Final Cut title screen that he used it on several videos before the Final Cut came out. Many people have watched the video with the Clock Lady thinking they're seeing the Final Cut.

Let me specify here that I really have no problems with them limiting the channel to those who pay. The movie is their property and they have the right to do with it as they will.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Sander Hicks and Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani moved slowly through a crowd outside Loveland Coffee Co., shaking hands with potential voters, when Sander Hicks, who said he was a reporter for a newspaper based in Brooklyn, N.Y., tried to ask a question.

He said, "On 9-11, when you-" and was cut off by boos. Giuliani laughed and smiled, moving through the crowd and saying little.

Hicks tried again, but to no avail. Then Giuliani stopped to say hello to Tom Buchalski, a Loveland resident and Bergen County, N.J., native, who opened his jacket so Giuliani could sign his T-shirt. It had a photo of lower Manhattan and it said "Tribute in Light 2002," commemorating the first anniversary of the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center. Giuliani signed his name to the shirt.

Video of the event is here. It looks like there was a sprinkling of Troofers throughout the crowd, somewhat like the Bill Maher hecklivism.

Hicks appears to be trying to resuscitate the claim that Rudy knew the Towers were going to collapse in advance. This is another one of those "mysteries" that only the kooks point to; as I have pointed out numerous times, EMS Battalion Chief John Peruggia was warned by a NYC building engineer at 9:58 AM that the North Tower was in imminent danger of collapse. Presumably either Peruggia or the building engineer proceeded to warn the Mayor. Unfortunately Giuliani has compounded the problem by denying that he had any advance knowledge, perhaps because the kooks generally frame it that he had plenty of warning, when in fact even the famed clip with Peter Jennings makes clear that he was told almost at the instant that the South Tower collapsed.

Note as well the protester screaming about the evidence being shipped off before it could be examined. I found a moderate debunking of this nonsense as well, in an unusual location. Among the board members of the FealGood Foundation is Alan Forcier, whose bio notes:

Alan Forcier, from Kings Park NY, is 47 years old and is a former NYPD undercover narcotics detective. He now lives in Nesconset and is the father of Ryan and Jessica. Alan spent seven months at the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island where he searched and collected evidence during the WTC recovery operation.

Later: I love Sander's explanation that he was not pushing them, he was doing a delicate little dance....

The Sixth Hijacker

I noticed this video over at 9/11 Blogger in which John Judge (the guy who says there are anti-aircraft missiles at the Pentagon based on what his dad told him in the 1950s) introduces a flight attendant who worked for American Airlines during the 9/11 period. Based on her friendship with Mr. Judge and her JFK conspiracy hobby, it appears she is a bit of a conspiracy theorist herself, but I don't see her catching on much in the community, because she angrily insists that flight 77 did hit the Pentagon, based on her personal knowledge of the bodies of friends that were found there.

In any case her conspiracy theory side comes out when she talks about her friend Renee May, who was a flight attendant on board flight 77, and her phone call to her mother. During the phone call she described 6 hijackers, rather than 5, and since it was unlikely she would make a mistake, there must be some secret sixth hijacker whose identity will blow the whole lid off of this. I don't get the point of this, since the last I heard there weren't supposed to be any hijackers! Make up your mind already. Ironically, while talking about the flight United 175, she refers to it as United 173, which also must have some secret and nefarious meaning, because obviously as she just explained, people do not get numbers mixed up.

Judge incidentally is also pretty screwy. In addition to the missiles claim, he says that flight 77 made an impossible maneuver, and circled around the Pentagon to hit if from another side. Not true, it was always on the west side. He also claims that very few Pentagon workers were killed, that it was mostly construction workers. A quick list of the victims, will show that is not true. Usually the troofers claim it was mostly accountants (those who were allegedly trying to find the missing trillions) who were killed. I wish these idiots would at least take the time to find out about the people they supposedly care so much about.

The Sounds of Silence

Now I was never buying into the Loose Change: The Final Insult hype that the Louder Than Words boys were putting out, what with 3,000 screens and a $20 million marketing budget and all, but I was expecting at least a little something. I mean, come on, when you are hyping a movie in Hustler it has got to mean something, right? I thought there would be a little PR to review, and maybe Pat or I would have to do an interview with some media source covering this "controversial" new... err... old movie.

Thus far it has been stunningly anti-climatic though. Not only does the movie present nothing new, in fact it has been so watered down that it is even less revelationary than the first three versions, but it has caused so little of a ripple in the world of popular culture as to be completely ignored. A search of Google News shows that with the exception of Prison Planet, the site owned by Executive Producer Alex Jones, a grand total of 1 news site marked the release of the movie, the Twin Cities Planet, discussing the single US theater appearance of the movie, which Pat mentioned below.

And it is not just fizzling out in the general media, even the Loosers have been less than ecstatic. A poll on the Loose Change Forum, a self selected audience where anyone but the most fervent supporters are immediately banned, shows that to this point only 42% of members "loved the movie". Or to use Truther poll math, even 58% of the most fervent Loose Change fans did not think the movie was that great.

More, Please!

We have hammered the 9-11 Troofers for their continued association with Holocaust Deniers and other disreputable characters. So it is only fair to note when somebody makes an effort to clean house.

By no means do all believers in either the “Illuminati” or demonized “bankers” hate Jews. Many do not. Some are even Jews themselves. However, these ideologies are historically intertwined with and closely parallel classic Jew-hating myths. For example, some anti-Illuminists have claimed that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Jewish forgery, is entirely true and accurate if you just substitute “Illuminati” for “Jews.” And a lot of the rhetoric we’ve been hearing in the alternative media about the Federal Reserve System is derived from writings such as Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins, a notorious Jew-hater who also believed that Jews ritually kill Christian children. Speaking of ritual murder, there’s also the “Satanic Ritual Abuse” scare, which often goes hand-in-hand with anti-Illuminism.

Alex Jones' Cremation of Care claims anybody? Solid and interesting post by Diane. Further discussion of the topic is here and here.

An aside here: I am never certain when praising some element of the 9-11 "Truth" movement for something whether I am helping them within the movement or if I'm just serving to marginalize them. Either outcome is reasonably logical, and probably has more to do with the individual reader than with what I actually wrote. Therefore, I don't consider the reactions of the Troofers when I post. I post what I believe and let the chips fall where they may.